To the farmer folk Mary was merely “queer,” but as the man in the buggy sat looking down at her he realized the promise of something strangely gorgeous.  As she shifted her position a shaft of mellow sunlight struck her face and it was as though her witch—­or fairy—­godmother had switched on a blaze of color.

“I wasn’t making fun of you,” declared the stranger; and his voice held so simple and courteous a note that Mary smiled again and was reassured.

The child was still thin and awkward and undeveloped of line or proportion, but color, which many painters will tell you is the soul-essence of all beauty, she had in the same wasteful splendor that the autumn woods had it in their carnival abundance.

Her hair was heavy, and its gold was of the lustrous and burnished sort that seems to tangle in its meshes a captive fire glowing between the extremes of amber and tawny copper.  Yet hair and cheeks and lips were only the minors of her color scheme.  The eyes were regnantly dominant and it was here that the surprising witch-like quality held sway.  The school-children had said they did not match, and they did not, for with the sun shining on her the man in the buggy realized that the right one was a rich brown like illuminated agate with a fleck or two of jet across the iris, while the left, its twin, was of a colorful violet and deeply vivid.  Young Edwardes had read of the weird beauty of such mismated eyes, but had never before seen them.

“Jove!” he exclaimed, and he let the reins hang on his knees as he bent forward and talked enthusiastically.

“There are eyes and eyes,” he smiled down.  “Some are merely lenses to see with and some are stars.  Of the star kind, a few are lustrous and miraculous, and control destinies.  I think yours are like that.  One can flash lambent fire and the other can soften like the petals of a black pansy—­it has just that touch of inky purple—­and in their range are many possibilities.”

“But—­but,” she stammered for a moment, irresolute and almost tearful, “they aren’t even mates and anyway eyes aren’t all.”  For a moment she hesitated, then with childish abandon confided, “I’d give anything in the world to be pretty.”

The stranger threw back his head and laughed.  “And when they are misty, let men beware,” he commented half-aloud, then he went on:  “What makes you think you’ll be ugly?”

“They call me spindle-legs at school and—­and—­” she broke off, failing to particularize further.

The man glanced smilingly down at the slight figure.

“Well, now,” he conceded, “in general effect you are a bit chippendale, aren’t you?  But that can be outgrown.  The rarest beauty isn’t that which comes before the ’teens.  If you never have anything else, be grateful for your eyes—­and remember this afterward.  Be merciful with them, because unless I’m a poor prophet there will come times when you will do well to remember that.”